Life in Stereo

I agree with a lot of Deepak Chopra's ideas. He has some great quotes. In our living room, I found an interview with him cut out from the Chicago Tribune (sometime Jan-May 2011?), and it's neato:

"...even if you took five, 10 minutes of quiet time every day or every other day or once a week and asked yourself simple questions like Who am I? What do I want? What is my life's purpose? Is there a contribution I can make to my community or to society? What kind of relationships do I want to have? What is my idea of well-being and how can I achieve it?

"I don't ask that you even know the answers, but if you start to do this kind of reflection, it has a very interesting way of not only moving you to the answers but of changing your behavior. Instead of saying 'I'm going to have all this willpower, and I'm going to try so hard,' which is all mental fatigue, reflective self-inquiry spontaneously leads to change."

Yep.

My experience with this kind of thing: a few times in my life I have decided to write down everything I eat for a day. Each and every time without fail, I eat much healthier without even meaning to or intending to. I meant to just faithfully record whatever was there, but observation always changes it. Obviously this is true of attitudes as well. A personal example: the second you are open enough to honestly ask, "am I being a brat right now?" you are demonstrating the courage to face the truth and very often you are rewarded with the truth, and a better and more authentic life as a result, whatever you ended up deciding as an answer.

Lastly, I think personal reflection is very important. Someone could accuse me of doing it too much and potentially be right. But I was comforted by the following. I read in a book that they did a survey of 85-year-olds and here were their top 3 would-haves:

1) I would have spent more time reflecting in meditation and contemplation.

2) I would have risked more.

3)I would have done more things that would live on after I die.

I know at least one person besides me reads this. So whoever is reading this, do you spend time in contemplation? Do you take risks? Are you doing anything that will live on after you die?